Studies in South Asian Film and Media (SAFM) is the most promising peer-reviewed new journal in the field. It is committed to looking at the media and cinemas of the Indian subcontinent in their social, political, economic, historical, and increasingly globalized and diasporic contexts. The journal will evaluate these topics in relation to class, caste, gender, race, sexuality, and ideology. The last few decades have witnessed South Asian cinema and media emerging as significant areas of academic inquiry. The journal is dedicated to building a space for a critical and interdisciplinary engagement with issues, themes and realities of cinema and media theory. The scope of the journal will incorporate the concerns of scholars, students, activists and media practitioners.

In this era of global communication, when the all-pervasive presence of media is no more in question, an intense debate concerning its political, ideological, and cultural impact has led to a highly complex and rapidly evolving field of inquiry.

We invite contributions from scholars, researchers and practitioners of South Asian film and media. Possible areas include but are not limited to:

Film and Media as social history.

Feminist analysis and theory in film/media studies and practice

Class, caste, and sexuality: The politics of subalterneity and marginalization in film/media studies.

Contemporary media/ documentary and the public sphere. Interviews with documentary film makers.

Global media consumer culture and labor in the cultural industries.

News, citizenship, democracy, and the neo-liberal restructuring of media industry.

Nationalism and Regional cinema in the context of neo-liberalism.

Globalization/Diaspora/ South Asian representation.

Cinema and the other arts.

Contemporary arts practices, cinema, and visual culture.

Articles should be between 6,000 – 8,000 words in length. Please note that articles should be original and not be under consideration by any other publication. For detailed submission instructions please click here.

SAFM also, welcomes shorter pieces that are either creative or analytical (between 1,000 – 4,000 words) as well as visual material. All initial enquires should be sent to the editors at aaj.safm@gmail.com.

Contributors will get a free copy of the issue and a 50% discount on subsequent copies.

Special Issue on Neoliberalism and South Asian Media and Cultural Politics, Winter 2012 (4:1)
Pramod K. Nayar and Jyotsna Kapur

Neoliberalism or the return to free-market ideology initiated in the 80s under the Reagan-Thatcher regimes was formally installed in India, under IMF and World Bank supervision, as the policy of “structural adjustment” in 1991. In fact, the entire South Asia region can serve as a vantage point from where neoliberalism may be observed. Put succinctly, neoliberalism is the intensification of capitalism: its relations of exploitation, underdevelopment, commodification, and abstraction. Its features are: a state fully committed to facilitating the movement and profit-making of global capital; deregulation and privatization of public assets and services; steady erosion of labor laws; and a commitment to free-market ideology. In this special issue we are interested in the human consequences and cultural politics of neoliberalism; in how its relations are rehearsed and revisited in culture

We welcome essays that address the relation between the production of culture and political economy; the nature of neoliberal subjectivities and cinema; textual analyses of particular texts or genres that have contested or reinforced neoliberalism; the anxieties around public and private spaces as they are played out nationally and globally in cinematic texts; labor and capital in the production of cinema and media; and questions of caste, gender, and sexuality in relation to neoliberalism; political organizing and online communities; the generational politics of neoliberalism; reality TV and neoliberal subjectivities. We are also interested in essays that discuss South Asian cinemas and/or media culture in a global or comparative perspective. We are looking for essays on media genres that have emerged in the wake of neoliberalism such as: Reality TV, makeover and extreme cultures, new kinds of advertisements in which the new subjectivities are forged, and the new media/cinema object in the context of the changing sites and modes of its circulation- namely, the multiplex, the internet.

Dates and Submissions policy
Submissions should not exceed 8,000 words and should be sent for consideration to (jkapur@siu.edu or pramodknayar@gmail.com). We welcome queries and abstracts. Please discuss your project with the editors before submitting the first draft. The deadline for the first draft is September 15th 2012 and final submissions will be due October 30th , 2012.

Notes for Book Reviewers:
SAFM regularly publishes critically engaged book reviews that further the dialogue on South Asian cinema and media culture. We are especially interested in clearly written, comparative analyses that can locate single or multiple contemporary works in the broader historical context of South Asian media studies. Innovative juxtapositions of scholarship and artistic practice; books and popular media artifacts; interviews and book reviews are especially welcome. We will carry reviews of single author manuscripts as well as edited anthologies.

Book reviews should not generally be longer than 1500 words. Please contact the book review editor in advance for projects that might exceed this limit. Please include a short bio note to accompany your book review. The title of your review should include all information on the book including publisher, place of publication, page numbers. See as follows:

Please use Times New Roman 12 point font and double space your review. We prefer that reviews do not have endnotes or footnotes. For further details on citations and formatting please see the submission guidelines on our webpage.